Dean Friedman - Music

Music

Born and raised in Paramus, New Jersey, Friedman received his first guitar when he was 9, in 1964, and started writing songs. When he was a teenager, he played weddings and bar mitzvahs as part of Marsha and the Self-Portraits, sent out demos and majored in music at City College of New York where one of his teachers was guitarist David Bromberg. By the time he was 20, in 1975, he had a manager and a recording contract with Cashman and West's Lifesong label.

In the United States he is described as a one-hit wonder, following his 1977 hit song "Ariel", which reached # 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and stayed in the chart for five months. "Ariel" has been described as a "quirkily irresistible and uncategorizable pop song about a free spirited, music loving, vegetarian Jewish girl", from Paramus, New Jersey, where he grew up. It is the only Billboard Top 40 song to contain the word Paramus. It describes the girl Ariel, "standing by the waterfall at Paramus Park", one of the many shopping malls in Paramus. The quarters she was collecting for "friends of BAI" refers to the New York radio station WBAI-FM, and their listener association, while the song also makes reference to "channel 2," which refers to local CBS affiliate WCBS-TV.

Although "Ariel" did not make the UK Singles Chart, "Lucky Stars", a duet with Denise Marsa taken from his second album Well Well Said the Rocking Chair, made #3 in the UK in late 1978, and both "Woman of Mine" and "Lydia" were lesser chart hits there.

Friedman also provided vocals for a series of television commercials in the 1970s in the New York metro area. The electronics chain Crazy Eddie's hired him to sing their doo-wop styled commercial: "When you think you're ready, come down to Crazy Eddie's".

Unlike many one-hit wonders, Friedman has continued to write and perform songs into the 2000s.